Tingle, Itch, What is This?
by Lily-L-Bell
Summary: Under stress John Watson engages subconsciously in orally fixated behaviors. Sherlock observes these, but is put out when there seems to be no stressful reason for John to be eating popsicles. First Kiss fic. Short but sweet.


**Tingle, Itch, What is This?**

Sherlock Holmes as a man of observational prowess. He could tell a CEO by his tie and a traveler by the stains on their clothes. He'd deduced John Watson from a tan-line. The thing about John was that he was a constant source of deductions. Once Sherlock had been confident he'd cataloged enough of John into his brain (that, should the doctor ever need to be replaced with a cyborg clone he could be reprogrammed perfectly,) the good Doctor always threw him for a loop that could keep him trained on the man for hours.

Sherlock's new Johnism (as he sometimes labeled them) was John's apparent oral fixation and his lack of awareness for it. This series of observations had been going on, covertly, for months now. Sherlock kept his little mental notes with his little mental pen to the pad, saving everything to the John Folder on his mental hard drive. It was text book, really. At any point where John became stressed out he seemed to indulge, subconsciously, in orally fixated activities. The first record in Sherlock's files was when Harry had relapsed again. John had been incredibly worried and the following weekend, at Tesco, he had announced with a child-like expression that he was going to purchase a bag of boiled sweets. "I haven't had butterscotch since I was a kid. My grandpa always had a dish of them." He'd said to the tall, bored detective accompanying him. John spent that weekend popping a Werther's Original in his mouth every time he walked past the dish set beside his chair.

Then there were the few weeks during the winter when there had been large outbreaks of the flu, especially among school-aged children. John had a very tiring time of it at the surgery. He was not a pediatric doctor, and yet he'd been sent a few of the children. Pediatrics was overblown. John always carried lollipops in his hospital coat pocket. Normally they were to keep the peace of children that came into his office for their parent's appointment. John could focus on administering to the adults while the child could sit in the chair, well engrossed in the lollipop. When John was stressed he also indulged in those lollipops when he had no patients. He'd come home every day from the surgery with the little white stick lolling around between his lips and when his tongue peeked out to lick his lips it was always a bright green. John preferred the green-apple lollipops. Sherlock didn't know why, but he cataloged that data too.

But by far the worst had been the ice-lollies over the summer. But John was frugal about his vice-like snacks, and he indulged in the cheap ice-lollies in the plastic tubes that required scissors to open them. It was an incredibly ridiculous sight. The doctor had chosen that incident to notice Sherlock's staring.

"Wha'?" he questioned. He'd been too lazy to hold it, and had been sitting typing away with his laptop resting against his knees; the plastic sleeve just dangling from his lips as he suckled the remaining juice from it using the power of a mouth-created vacuum. It was Obnoxious-Blue. The detective had to hide the coil in his abdomen at the thought that John would smell like artificial blue-raspberry for the next hour and internally scolded himself as to the subsequent wonder of how long the flavor would linger in the doctor's mouth. He could always ask, but then he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Finally he spoke. "What's bothering you?" The detective questioned. John only indulged in this childish oral fixation when he was experiencing some form of unrest. But Sherlock had yet to deduce the reasoning behind the obnoxious ice-lollies. The doctor seemed, for all the world, to be in a relatively good mood. He was smiling often, hadn't been scolding Sherlock with as much vehemence, and was even on somewhat good terms with his sister again. What was it that was bothering him that was requiring him to indulge in this sucking-habit?

John simply sounded off one last slurp from his ice-lolly sleeve and withdrew it from his mouth to toss it in the bin next to his chair, there were four in there already. "Nothing's bothering me." He stated. "What makes you think I'm bothered by something? I thought I must seem annoyingly chipper to you lately." Sherlock quirked a brow. Surely it had to be something, but John was always so open when he was stressed. The man was one who did not often complain, but had with time opened up and could complain somewhat to his flatmate. He'd complained about nothing lately, not expressed any other of his telltale signs of distress, merely the infernal sucking.

It was time to come clean, the experiment had gone on long enough, it was time to get clarification in this blip in what was supposed to be predictable behavior for John Watson. "The ice-lollies." Sherlock indicated.

"What about them?" The blue tinted tongue flicked out across his lips, slightly blued from the dye as well. "If you want some go right ahead, they're in the ice box. I can get fifty for two pounds, it's not going to break my wallet to share a little." He chortled but the smile faded when Sherlock snorted.

"I can assure you I don't want your ice-lollies, I'm wondering why you want them."

John just furrowed his brow, confused, befuddled, not seeing the connection at all. Sherlock read all of this in an instant, but John made an attempt to reply. "Because I haven't had them since I was a kid and they just went on sale? I dunno, Sherlock." He shrugged. "It's not like I was dying for them, it was an impulsive purchase."

"Yes but you can tell a lot about someone by their impulsive purchases, displaying needs they may not be aware of. I've been watching you John-"

"Sherlock, we've talked about this. You're brother stalks me enough, and I'm not an experiment."

"Stop interrupting, it's my way of getting to know you better. I'm not experimenting on you, I'm not introducing anything new to the system, merely watching you in your motions. But I have deduced from over six months of observations that in a great time of stress you fall back on a habit of yours. Everyone does under pressure. Some smoke, some drink, you, on the other hand, are squeaky clean of most vices outside of the fact that you drink enough tea that you should be made benevolent dictator of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka." He'd inform the confused doctor later that Sri Lanka is the world's 4th largest tea producer and the economy is somewhat dependent on tea production. "But when you are stressed you engage in orally fixated behaviors. You consume boiled sweets, lollipops, and ice-lollies. This time, however, I've encountered no stressful stimuli to be the source." He wasn't going to add how John's reaction to stressful stimuli often stimulated him in a way that was somewhat distressing.

It made the detective feel like his own lips were tingling, itching, whatever was this feeling? As time progressed Sherlock would watch John with one of those boiled sweets or lollipops, he could see the working of the doctor's jaw, could read the movement of his tongue and throat by the flexing of his chin and neck. He'd become, with time, dangerously fond of how they made the doctor's breath smell sweet when Sherlock was invading personal space. (He'd later admit to himself that there were times where he intentionally invaded John's space simply to smell if he was indulging in butterscotch or strawberry flavored candies.) He was starting to want to experiment on his flat mate, to question him as to how long his mouth would retain that flavor, how powerful was John Watson's saliva at removing it?

It wasn't until he was nose to nose with a very confused John that Sherlock realized he'd been approaching through his inner monologue. Blue Raspberry candy scent ghosted into him, filling his lungs and making his stomach churn. He tried to lie to himself, saying that the artificial candy scent was disgusting and making him nauseous, but then why did he suddenly crave the flavor? He felt his tongue coating with slippery saliva at the thought of it. He hated artificially flavored candies and snacks. Even as a child he'd been especially repelled by blue-raspberry. Raspberries were not blue. He would not consume any food that was blue. There was no blue food. (And anyone who ever mentioned blueberries would be quickly admonished because everyone with half a brain cell was aware that blueberries were purple.)

"Sherlock?" John questioned, still somewhat confused. "You wanted to know if something was bothering me?" Oh the smell of his breath, Sherlock just wanted to press his mouth to it and drink it in. "Yes?" He breathed in reply.

"Something has been, a little, I guess." He whispered. "It wasn't really bothering me so much as making me, kind of, happy but I didn't know why really."

"What was that?" Curiosity slamming down safety walls against his nearly impulsive need to drink in John.

"I noticed you were staring at me a lot, but it wasn't in an accusing or confused way, and it was… almost like admiring and… it felt good… but I didn't know why you were. I wasn't really going to question it. Didn't really know I'd given myself away with food though. Never really noticed that I get those kind of snacks when I'm hung up on something. So… are you… satisfied then?" He mumbled, his head was back against the chair, he couldn't really flinch away from Sherlock being nose to nose with him. Blue grey eyes shot down to his mouth and then back to his cobalt shaded eyes.

"No." Sherlock muttered in reply. "Not really anyway. Still painfully, curious, about, one, more, thing." Where did this sudden nerve come from? This audacity? It came from his belly. Sherlock knew that much came from that uncomfortable churning that John put there. But it was like lightning and fire and aloe and butterfly wings all at once when he brushed his lips against John's, still cold from the ice-lolly. It was short, and probably more chaste than anything John had ever received, but when he shifted back, and they both licked their lips he felt a satisfying smile paste itself onto his face. "You taste like the ice-lolly." He commented.

John was staring ahead into Sherlock's eyes, breath hitched and coming out in a shaky shudder. "I would." He shrugged, finally waking up enough for his tanned face to be painted deep red.

"Are you satisfied?" Sherlock questioned.

"Hm? Um, what?" John asked.

"You didn't know why I'd been staring at you, I think it was more than just curiosity. Are you satisfied with my answer?"

John licked his lips again, oh please doctor, please stop doing that for one second. "No." He answered, and something inside the detective clenched, threatening to collapse.

The palm wound itself into Sherlock's hair, and brought his face forward again. This was not a brushing of lips. This was hungry and gentle and hot as wool but chilly as silk all at once. When John finally released Sherlock's curls he sighed, but it sounded more like words. "Satisfied. But we can do better." Sherlock licked blue raspberry flavored saliva off his lips. Yes they certainly could.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I submitted this a bit wrong earlier, apparently using American phrases for the treats. Thanks to Someone (are you anonymous my dear?) for telling me in a review so I could make the changes!**

**For the American audience:**

**Lollipop = a sucker. (Might be obvious, but I've always referred to them as suckers.)**

**Ice-lollies = popsicles. (In Britain they HAVE to have the ones in the clear plastic sleeves too. I mean. They must. They're the poor-man's answer to popsicles. I practically lived off the blue raspberry and green lime ones as a kid!)**

**Boiled Sweets = Hard candies. (Anyone with a grandparent knows these are awesome in their own way.)**


End file.
